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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436079">fragile</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pajama_sama/pseuds/pajama_sama'>pajama_sama</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tyranny (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(kind of. mark's a bit of an avoidant dingdong), Angst, Big Depression™, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, it's BREAKDOWN TIME LADDIES, no seriously just imagine the amount of pressure</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:47:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,246</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436079</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pajama_sama/pseuds/pajama_sama</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fatebinder is perfect to all people all the time, everywhere, on every occasion. She is the arbitrator of the Adjudicator, a mouthpiece for the Law, and an instrument of justice.</p><p>But even Fatebinders, someday, must break.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bleden Mark/Fatebinder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>fragile</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denerim/gifts">Denerim</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>prompt fill: one half of the otp reacting to the other crying. </p><p>i just borrowed the amazing Sian, who does not belong to me. go check out Sian's mom @ Bleden-mark.tumblr.com ♥</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If she hears the word ‘Fatebinder’ one more time, Sian may well scream.</p><p>She has no idea what brought this on. </p><p>There’s been nothing special about today—it has been more of the same. The same drudgery, the same monotonous slog of work. She takes pride in it, she tells herself. She is dutiful, and fair, and exacting. No detail escapes her or her keen eye. For years, she’s honed her sense of instinct, the mastery of her words, the practice of the Good Overlord’s Law. How many sleepless nights has she spent poring over dense, nigh-nonsensical texts, dissecting the intricacies of Kyros’ Peace? How many cases has she arbitrated, waiting with bated breath for the elusive approval of the Adjudicator?</p><p>Many. Countless. She cannot remember. That is her answer.</p><p>And it does not make her feel better at all. </p><p>She cannot even muster the strength to leave her lovely curule chair and move toward her washbasin. For what feels like eons, she’s been slumped here, like some pathetic, wretched creature, wallowing in the quagmire of her own misery. Her tunic feels hot and tight. Her ears are ringing, her eyes stinging, and her mouth is as dry as the Blade Grave. The tears have tracked wide trails down her cheeks. She stopped trying to wipe them away a long time ago. They haven’t ceased, and the more she sits in the chair, the more she begins to believe they never will.</p><p>Sian can mark the last occasion she shed a tear—during that unhappy conclusion of the disaster she calls her childhood. It’s such a distant recollection that it is almost as though it belongs to someone else from another life: but despite that gauzy distance, there’s a sharp immediacy to the emotion of it all, like she is still a devastated little girl, watching the silhouette of her home disappear from the back of an ox-drawn cart. </p><p>Perhaps she is. </p><p>If traipsing around the Tiers has taught her anything, it is that the wounds of the past often do not heal; they merely scab, festering beneath a thin membrane until they are torn open again, free to bleed. And oh, how it <em> hurts</em>—it has always hurt, and she has always studiously ignored it, carefully suffocated every single trace of that gnawing regret, of that whisper-soft insecurity. Her very existence depends on it. Vulnerability, ignorance, curiosity, indecision—each and every one is a death sentence for a Fatebinder, whether they are a fledgling or a storied veteran. </p><p>Now that dam—that precious, protecting wall—has collapsed under the weight of an invisible strain. Of her secret burden. Will she ever be able to build it back up again? To return to that safe haven of detachment and poise? This raw, unbridled agony could be the new theme to her life. The ember in her chest may never die. The thought makes her sob harder. </p><p><em> You are broken</em>, something within tells her. It does not sound insidious, like usual. It only sounds true. <em> You are broken, and broken things cannot be perfect. Impostor.  </em></p><p>“Stop,” she tries to murmur, but it comes out as a sad whimper. “Stop…” </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>***</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Bleden Mark has never seen Sian cry.</p><p>In fact, he wasn’t completely convinced she could. She has been through things no other Fatebinder has—and he should know, as he was the one to put her through most of them—and despite being no stranger to the myriad of tiny variations in her otherwise expressionless face, this outpouring of grief is alien to him. Especially from her. She is disheveled and overwhelmed, curled in her chair like she’s trying to hide from the world, her pale cheeks tinged fever-red. Unluckily for her, there are pitifully few places his shadows cannot reach. So he watches her—vivid in her sorrow, but almost totally silent. Mesmerizing.</p><p>Sian is beautiful, of course—she takes great pains in making sure that is so, too—but most of her charm, most of the challenge, is that she is also composed. Deathly, boringly, relentlessly composed. She shed that front the moment she shut the door to her chambers behind her. He’d been lying in wait, ready to spring a talk about the upcoming trial on her, and she’d all but crumpled two steps away from her bed. </p><p>She’d torn the golden circlet out of her fine white hair, and then shrugged out of her tunic’s sash. Kicked off her sandals. Sat down. And lastly, miraculously, she’d begun to cry. </p><p>He is certain that someone, somewhere, would declare this complete unraveling poetic. </p><p>The Fatebinder has a face sculptors would like: high cheekbones, delicate features paired with a stern jaw, a shapely, clever mouth, and large eyes the color of yellow beryls. Nearly no one looks past that great mask. She works obsessively to persuade others that she glides through life with a confident, statuesque ease; she’s so implacable and motionless, so deliberate and apparently unfeeling, that it’s hard for most to not believe her. But Mark knows her, and knows her better than the rest, those gullible fools who take superficial impressions as fact. She is a complex structure of fears and worries, controlled by her need for symmetry and order. She is fascinating. </p><p>Mark circles the room, a noiseless wisp of gloom. The full, despondent state of her is most evident when he faces her. There’s a strangeness to this, one he doesn’t really want to dwell on. She’s twisted in anguish, from the drawn line of her shoulders to the hands clenched against her scalp.</p><p>He’s <em> honestly </em> surprised she didn’t crumble sooner—and not much can surprise Mark, anymore. </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>***</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Minutes pass, drag by like years, and eventually the Fatebinder goes quiet. </p><p>He drifts closer, so close that she’d be able to feel the brush of his breath if he were occupying a physical form, but there’s no reaction. Not even the flutter of a stray, white eyelash. </p><p>It’s because she’s fallen asleep—uncomfortably, inconveniently asleep. Her one arm is pillowed under her cheek, crushed to the wood of the curule; the other is still askance, fingers threaded into the strands above her temple. She is usually more relaxed in repose—peaceful. It’s not so today. Her expression is frozen into the ghost of her waking suffering. The violent flush of her skin is unusual, but not unwelcome; and it goes down very far, to her elegant collarbones and further. He manifests slowly, little by little, until he’s solid enough to touch the back of his hand to her cheek, feeling the heat there. </p><p>She’s normally a light, jittery sleeper, alerted by the littlest sound, but she doesn’t stir when he peels her from the chair or hoists her in his arms. She’s all bone and height, slender legs and waist, too fragile for someone so powerful. Her head lolls back against the crook of his elbow. She won’t remember any of this—will figure she succeeded in dragging herself to bed at some point, because that’s where she’ll come to. She won’t tell him the truth about today, either. That suits him.</p><p>He makes his way to the bed and sets her down on it, letting her slide from his grip. She turns instinctively into the softness of her pillow, grasping at it. Innocent. Unaware. He lets the shadows pull him away before he gives into the urge to touch her again. </p><p>As he stares down at her, he wonders why he bothered. </p>
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